Stone Rain
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NO TIME FOR GOODBYE
PREVIEW FOR NO TIME FOR GOODBYE
ALSO BY LINWOOD BARCLAY
COPYRIGHT
For Neetha
Miranda heard noises coming from the bottom of the stairs. They were back. If they find me here, she thought, I’ll end up dead, just like the others.
It had to be them, downstairs in the bar. It was after hours, after all. Everyone else had cleared out. The Kickstart had been closed, the girls had been sent home. They’d be coming upstairs any moment now to finish up their business. It would be quite the day for them. Sell some beer, some drugs on the side, get a bunch of guys laid, figure out what to do with three bodies.
Oh yeah, they’d kill her. Well, maybe not Leo. Chances were he wouldn’t kill her. Gary would be the one to actually kill her. But Leo, he wouldn’t do anything to stop it. He always let Gary take the lead in these things. I’ll end up as dead as the others, Miranda thought.
If I don’t get out of here right now.
The others hadn’t been dead long.
Only minutes, she guessed, although it seemed much longer. It was true what they said, Miranda thought, about things slowing down. Maybe that’s why, in the movies, when something terribly dramatic was happening, they ran it in slow motion. Not just because it was a neat effect, but because it was a reflection of human experience. Maybe your brain had to play tricks with time, give you a chance to absorb what the hell was happening so you could figure out how to deal with it.
Miranda felt as though she’d been in this room with the three dead men for some time now. But maybe it hadn’t even been minutes. Maybe it had only been a few seconds. She wasn’t sure. She wondered whether she might be slipping into shock.
All she knew for certain was that they were dead. All you had to do was look at them. Sprawled out across the floor, not stirring, their shirts and pants soaked with blood.
Payne, dead. Eldridge, dead. Zane, dead.
And only moments before, all alive.
Eldridge had been the last to die. He’d hung on long enough to look into her eyes and say, “Gary…He’ll kill you…”
She hardly needed the warning.
Even as she’d heard Gary and Leo at the bottom of the stairs, she’d tried to pull herself together, to think. Focus, she thought. Focus.